'It is nothing to do with us. It is something beyond our control'

The farmer at the centre of the outbreak, Derrick Pride, yesterday told the Guardian that his family was heartbroken at what had happened. Speaking for the first time since the outbreak was confirmed, Mr Pride, who runs Woolford's Farm with his wife, Sheila, and his son, Roger, said: "It is a real shock. I'm devastated."

The Prides' family farm is in the pretty village of Elstead, near Guildford, about six miles south-west of the laboratory at Pirbright. They have a farm shop, from where they sell their meat, and they also stable horses. The field where the infected animals were grazing is in the village of Normandy, two miles from Pirbright.

Mr Pride said: "We've farmed that land for years. It's quite isolated. There's only a footpath so how this has happened I don't know." He noticed something was wrong with the animals last week. The farmer, who looked tired and upset, declined to talk about the laboratory, saying: "Defra has told me to make no comment."

He said the family would want to have their say when more was known about how their animals became infected. But he insisted they had done no wrong. "It is nothing to do with us. It is not our fault. It is something beyond our control. We try to keep a clean farm. We do everything by the book. You have to these days. You'd be crazy not to. We're trying to carry on but it's very difficult."

Leaning on the farm gate as he spoke to the Guardian, he added: "The family have helped us. They have rallied round. So have the villagers. You get to know who your friends are at times like this."

Later Derrick Pride's daughter, who declined to give her name, said: "Mum and dad are very upset. We are very worried about them because they are quite elderly. We are a close-knit family and this has come as a big shock to us."

Meanwhile, other farmers around the Pirbright laboratory and the Prides' farm tightened their biosecurity measures. A sign outside Hookley Farm in Elstead instructed delivery drivers to disinfect their vehicles. A lane outside a pig farm nearby was blocked. Disinfected straw was laid on roads around Pirbright while police stood guard by the laboratory's 8ft-high fence and stopped anyone approaching the land in Normandy.

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